CLEAN WATER ACTION's Overview ...3
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CLEAN WATER ACTION’S SCORECARD FOR THE 115TH CONGRESS Since the start of the 115th Congress in 2017, assaults on basic safeguards for our water, air and health have become more frenzied than ever before. Clean Water Action’s Scorecard documents these attacks and shows you how your representatives voted on key environmental legislation. CLEAN WATER ACTION’S Overview .................................................. 3 Description & Status of Bills Scored ......... 4 SCORECARD Scorecard: House ....................................10 FOR THE 115TH CONGRESS Scorecard: Senate .................................. 28 The 2016 elections were a turning point. This Congress has refused to hold Administration appointees accountable, allowing Unfortunately we turned the wrong direction. Secretary Ryan Zinke to drastically reduce the size of national monuments and they allowed former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to waste taxpayer money, start to wipe out Since gaining the majority in 2010, Republicans in Congress have done all they can to protections for drinking water, and sideline career employees despite his very public ethics undermine protections for our water and health, and put the profits of corporate special scandals. Republican leaders have stayed silent as the Trump administration ignored the interests before the needs of the public. Until 2014 leaders in the Senate were able to stop rule of law, even attempting to help EPA avoid public scrutiny by proposing changes to the worst excesses of the Republicans in the House of Representatives through 2014 and. Administrative Procedures Act, the law that requires agencies to engage the public during And until January 2017, until leaving office, the Obama administration acted as a was a the rule-making process. backstop, rejecting dangerous bills that would have turned back the clock on safeguards for health and the environment. As you’ll see in our Scorecard, Republicans in Congress have prioritized corporate polluters and campaign donors over the public every chance they have had. They have voted to Now, since the start of the 115th Congress in 2017, the assaults on the most basic of slash agency budgets, undermine the science used to develop safeguards, and more. safeguards for our water, air and health have become more frenzied than ever before. Republican leaders have allowed the fossil fuel industry and others to put our democracy in The Republican majority in Congress cheered along as the Trump administration gave up a stranglehold. our global leadership in the fight against climate change. Republican leaders in Congress have facilitated Trump’s Dirty Water Agenda, eagerly dismantling modest policies like With the most important elections of the 21st century just around the corner, we hope you’ll the Stream Protection Rule which had provided communities in coal country with a few use these scores as a guide at the ballot box. The people who represent us matter. For too tools to protect their drinking water from mountain-top removal coal mining waste. GOP long our Representatives and Senators have cared more about the powerful special inter- members of the House and the Senate found ways to give even more handouts to the fossil ests who call the shots in Washington than people like you and me. It’s time to change that. fuel industry and helped Trump install former industry lobbyists and executives in the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Departments of Interior and Energy. And that 2018 can be a turning point too. It can be the year that we was just in 2017. begin to take back Congress and our democracy. 2 Overview The U.S. Congress has become increasingly hostile to the environment, climate, public health, and water since 2010. The past eight years have seen frenzied attacks on landmark laws like the Clean Water Act, an ongoing failure to address the climate crisis, and the influence of corporate special interests has become a stranglehold on our democracy. This went into overdrive in 2017, after the election of President Trump. Today, the majority in Congress puts the bottom lines of the fossil fuel industry, industrial agriculture, developers, and other polluters before the health of our environment, the public, or the climate. Ideologues in the House and the Senate, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, have led this assault, undermining basic protections for our water, walking back our nation’s leadership on climate and helping President Trump install corporate cronies in his cabinet. Clean Water Action scored several House and Senate floor votes, including Congressional Review Act resolutions, amendments or “riders” to government funding bills, stand-alone bills like the Farm Bill and the 2017 Tax Reform Bill, and confirmation votes of President Trump’s cabinet, agency, and Supreme Court nominees. SCORING: Clean Water Action tallied 33 votes for each Representative and 12 votes for each Senator. Due to the ongoing and historic hostility to environmental protections of the 115th Congress, “NO” was the pro-environment vote for most votes in both the House and Senate. For a perfect 100%, a Member of Congress must vote correctly on all votes for which they register a vote. Most votes followed party lines — Republicans generally voting against, and Democrats in favor of the environment. Ninety percent of all Republican members of Congress, scored zero or in single digits. While 91% of all Democratic Members of Congress scored 90% or higher, including 168 perfect scores of 100%. The partisan breakdown is clear – Republican Members of Congress favor corporate special interests while putting our health, environment, and climate at risk. Following are the biggest attacks from the 115th Congress. Description of individual votes begins on page 5. House Scorecard starts on page 10 and Senate Scorecard starts on page 28. 3 The Congressional Review Act Andrew Wheeler for the top two positions at the Environ- In the first few months of the Trump administration, Repub- mental Protections Agency, Ryan Zinke to run the Depart- licans in Congress used an obscure provision, known as ment of the Interior, and Rick Perry as Secretary of the the Congressional Review Act (CRA), to repeal more than a Department of Energy. Scott Pruitt immediately began to dozen regulations that were enacted by the Obama Admin- roll back policies like the Clean Water Rule and Clean Power istration in 2016. One of the first bills signed by President Plan, sideline career officials and scientific advisors, and Trump was a CRA resolution that wiped out the Stream decrease enforcement actions. He wasted taxpayer money Protection Rule, which gave communities near mountain- on first class flights and unneeded security enhancements, top removal coal mining operations enhanced information attempted to leverage his position for personal gain, and about mining activities. It also provided modest protections got into a series of serious ethics scandals, leading to for surface water, which many of these communities rely on his resignation and replacement by Andrew Wheeler, the for drinking water, by requiring coal companies to properly current Acting Administrator. Ryan Zinke is working to Attacks on science, agency budgets, dispose of their mining waste instead of simply dumping it reduce the size of several national monuments and open in streams. up public land for fossil fuel extraction, while sparking the GOP Tax Scam, and the rider to numerous investigations into his ethical lapses, attacks on allow drilling in the Arctic National The Congressional Review Act was also used to cancel science, and potential Hatch Act violations. Rick Perry has rules to prevent corruption in the oil and gas industry Wildlife Refuge attempted to prop up the failing coal industry. and overturn protections for wildlife in Alaska. Congress The House of Representatives tried to undermine science attempted and failed to use the CRA to eliminate a rule with several bills. The House has also worked to slash that would require the oil and gas industry to reduce vent- Riders on Government Funding agency budgets including a 33% reduction to EPA. So far ing, flaring, and leaks at industry operations on public and and Other Must-Pass Bills the bills to restrict the use of science in health and envi- tribal lands. Congressional Review Act resolutions require a Republicans in Congress have used must-pass funding ronmental regulations and to cut agency budgets have not simple majority in the Senate so they cannot be filibustered. bills to sneak in attacks on protections for clean water and passed in the Senate. Unfortunately the same is not true The CRA also prevents “substantially similar” rules from health that would not pass on their own. By attaching riders for an amendment that overturned a 30 year ban on oil and ever being adopted in the future. Prior to 2017, the CRA had to funding bills for EPA or the Farm Bill, Republicans have gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In late only been successfully used to repeal one rule. side-stepped robust debate over unpopular provisions to 2017, Congress passed a tax reform bill that wildly benefited weaken protections for streams, wetlands, and drinking corporations and the wealthy. Included in that tax bill was Nominations water. The “Dirty Water Rider” would repeal the 2015 Clean an amendment that opened up this wilderness to fossil fuel extraction, putting wildlife at risk. The Senate has a duty to vet and approve or disapprove of Water Rule, wiping out clear Clean Water Act safeguards for nominees for high level agency positions including cabinet vital parts of our natural water infrastructure. While these Republicans in Congress are putting our health at risk by members, federal judges, and nominees for the Supreme provisions have passed the House of Representatives many placing the priorities of corporate polluters and special Court. The Senate approved Rex Tillerson, former CEO times, they have yet to pass the Senate.